Teen Astronomy Cafés: Inspiring Students to Pursue STEM through a New Online Program

Abstract:

Our world has changed due to COVID-19. As a result, online resources and programs for STEM education have become more prevalent. One of our in-person programs, Teen Astronomy Cafés, where students and astronomers meet to discuss timely science topics, has transitioned to an online forum. The goal of the Teen Astronomy Cafes program is to excite the interest of talented youth in STEM. One Saturday a month during the academic year, high school students interact with astronomers who work with big data. Students learn about killer asteroids, exoplanets, lives and deaths of stars, black holes, structure of the universe, gravitational lensing, dark matter, colliding galaxies and more. The format for each cafe is a short presentation by an astronomer, a computer-based activity and discussion. Students successfully explore the astronomer’s research through a Python activity. Typically, over 100 high school students are involved each year with over 30 teachers from 24 school local to Tucson, AZ, USA. Evaluations show positive feedback on their experiences and impressions of STEM.

Recently our cafés became e-Teen Astronomy Cafés. Initially, accounts on our server were available for local high school students registered for the cafés. We have recently explored using Colab or Mybinder as a simple means of running Python notebooks through a browser. In addition to 11 Python activities, we now also have a virtual Teen Astronomy Café Design Document to share with anyone interested in starting an e-Teen Astronomy Café program or using the activities in the classroom. Lessons learned on using the waiting room, breakout rooms, polling, facilitator cheat sheets, worksheets, google chat for facilitators, screensharing among students, will be discussed. The breakout rooms were key as well as allowing the students to continue working on the activity remotely after the café. At the last café, the students stayed on an extra hour, because they enjoyed the Python notebook activity so much.